Advancing Opportunity via Safe Sanitation

When you attempt to provide education, literacy programs and technology to under-served areas, you notice something if you stay long enough.

Many of the women and girls that need the most support—the individuals you know will benefit their communities if they become educated and economically empowered—are most at risk of missing the opportunities brought in from aid groups like ours in our early days.

This is how the GSAP began: in literacy & education programs in Ghana. And here is where it is now: in sustainable sanitation, micro finance, education and training.

There is a profound and simple reason why the need for basic sanitation often supersedes the needs of education. Without a safe place for women and girls in particular, we discovered that many were dropping out of classes, getting sick or otherwise missing school due to menses, bacterial-based illness, and even rape.

In communities where sanitation is not safe, girls can be targeted. We have been working to change that.

We know that people equipped with the safety, dignity and healthier environment that private microflush toilets provide can do more. We know the communities improve. Learn more. Lifting their communities. Individuals can benefit from literacy and technology and enjoy the benefits from running businesses such as through programs like our MAKERs-Lender model. Everyone benefits. That’s the point.

There is a reason why the Gates Foundation and other high-profile NGOs have challenged scientists and engineers to tackle the problems of basic sanitation. Without this cornerstone, other efforts suffer. By visiting our timeline, you can see how we started, and why we have moved so steadfastly into this direction of our key MAKERs program.